Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 32-minute talk, Kyabje Rinpoche teaches the mind-training commitments—the auxiliary practices that pair with love and compassion to generate and sustain the awakening heart. He opens with not relying on external conditions, calling practitioners to continue their practice equally through sickness and ease, hardship and comfort. He then unfolds four further commitments: change your attitude while remaining natural (inner transformation without display); don’t gossip about others’ faults (only correct with pure motivation); don’t dwell on others’ affairs (avoid comparative judgment); and give up hope for personal results, practicing instead for all beings’ liberation. Throughout, Rinpoche demonstrates how to convert suffering into compassion and treat difficulty as purification. Practical and pitched at practitioners committed to the Mahāyāna path.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1990-03-27 – 8A – KR.mp3
UUID: 9d5a87f1-b685-4003-8f52-4dd76aa9f95c
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Sun Radiance – Thought Transformation
Date: 1990-03-27
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~1,699
Sentient beings more dear than myself, I must I myself must attain Buddhahood for their sake. By attaining Buddhahood, I will be able to establish all sentient beings in complete and perfect happiness. And in order to do that, I must train my mind. And in the manner of exchange of myself and others, I would develop the awakening heart. In order to develop such an attitude for listening to this teaching and training my mind, we will take five minutes of meditation.
Yeah. So within the vast extensive subjects of the great vehicle Dharma those that are central are the awakening heart and the profound view of emptiness. And within the vast subject of the awakening heart, the two central methods for development of the awakening heart are the seven cause and effect instructions and equalizing and exchanging self for others. And among these two, the supreme, most powerful, and the most greatest potential is the method of exchanging and equalizing self with others. The the So what we must do with respect to the precious awakening heart is having not yet generated it, to newly develop it.
If we have generated to not only to seek to maintain it, but to develop it higher and higher. So how are we to bring this about? What methods can we employ to newly generate the ungenerated mind of enlightenment? The awakening heart and having developed it to maintain it and increase it higher and higher? What practices do we have to pursue?
And these are that in addition to the practices, the main practices of love and compassion, we are to combine these with the commitments and training training of mind training or thought transformation. So in pursuit of this end of seeking to newly generate the awakening heart having generated it, not only to have it maintained, but to increase it higher and higher. We must rely on the on the main practices of development of love and compassion, but additionally the commitments and guidelines of training of the mind. Without these commitments, without these, the main practice of love and compassion, but additionally the adhering to the commitments and the guidelines of mind training, we will not be able to develop newly maintain and increase higher and higher the awakening heart. So considering the great importance of these auxiliary practices of commitments and guidelines, the text then goes into commitments of the mind training as we began previously.
And the commitment, the next commitment commitment is Don’t rely on other conditions. Don’t rely on other conditions. I think that’s no, it’s not. We all understand in general we we are able to practice well, to put implement the practices of Dharma, when we have conducive conditions, when we have no sickness, when we have no particular suffering, no particular difficulties, at such a time then we can meditate, carry on a good practice. But on the other hand, when we don’t have conducive conditions, when we perhaps don’t have any food or that we’re sick or some kind of difficulty, then we’re not able to practice.
We only are able to seem as if we are only able to practice when we’re happy, when there’s no difficulty. When some difficulties and hindrance arise, then we set our Dharma practice aside. So it was often spoken of the Tibetans in this example that when things were going well, when their stomachs were full, having just eaten delicious food, when they were nice and comfortable and warm, then they were great practitioners. They were able to meditate well and things would they could carry on a very strong practice. But when they had no food, when they became cold, when they became sick, they became there was no difference between them and the run of the mill person, an ordinary person.
They had no thought of Dharma. They set aside as if they had no experience whatsoever. No understanding and they set aside their practice. So you know just briefly that the type of practitioner we shouldn’t be the type of practitioner who practices when they’re happy and sets aside their practice immediately when there arises some difficulty for them. That whether we’re happy or in pain we are to continue our practice.
Otherwise we are not a practitioner. We’re just like everyone else who has no thought of Dharma. That if we really understand the need to generate the awakening heart, then we’re going to pursue it, its development, whether we’re happy or in pain, whether we’re sick or well, whether things are conducive or whether things are difficult. And if we act in this way, then the awakening heart will arise spontaneously within us. If we don’t, it will never arise.
So, you know, the general run of the mill practitioner would simply is able to practice, carry on their meditations, etcetera, when there is no problems. For example, when they aren’t sick then they can practice well it appears. But then at that time when some sickness arises, for example, they get a headache, they say, Oh, I can’t meditate. I can’t, I’m gonna set aside my practice because I have this headache. But they don’t understand that the Dharma is to benefit them, is of use at all times, is to make, is to be made use of at all times.
Whether they’re well or whether they’re sick at the time of sickness, then we are to make use of Dharma. We are not to set it aside in such a circumstance that we are to we shouldn’t think just because I’m sick now I can’t practice. That we should make use of that in, for example, thinking that this headache that I now have, this pain, that may this be the pain of all the headaches of all sentient beings, may this be a substitute for all their pain. And may they all be relieved of that pain by my taking it on in this way. And may they all be happy.
And therefore we can make a special use of these difficult times to carry on our practice of Dharma. So Atisha said that that the suffering is the purification, the clearing away of negativities and obstructions. And that we should think that when we’re experiencing some difficulties, some suffering that this is the ripening effect of past negative actions that we’ve created. By experiencing this suffering, then it’s finished. That it’s that this obstruction has been eliminated.
It’s been purified. And that and therefore thinking in this way that our Dharma practice is in fact going very well and rejoicing in this fact is like sweeping away the dirt, getting rid of it once and for all. And then the within this translation of the text, the next commitment is to change your attitude. The second line, the commitments of mind training. Change your attitude but remain natural.
Change your attitude but remain natural. That between the two, that of body and mind, mind training consists in transformation of the mind. That in transforming the mind, changing the mind, we are reversing the trend from self centeredness to other centeredness. This is where the actual change takes place. The body, our physical activity should remain the same as previous.
That it should remain natural. That we should not display ourselves physically in our physical ways as that we are some kind of great mind trainee. That this would be very unacceptable. But in fact, the way we act physically should be as natural as as it was previously. But the transformation is to be made within one’s own mind.
Then the the next commitment which is spoken of is do not talk about weak points. Do not talk about weak points. And with specifically with regard to our Dharma friends that if we have an altruistic motivation, we have a caring attitude, and we notice that someone has some fault, is doing something wrong in some way, then it’s perfectly acceptable to approach them and explain that this is not a good way to act. It would be better if you acted in this way. But on the other hand, if our motivation is negative, if it is specifically mixed in with either attachment or hatred, then it is not appropriate to point out any of their faults.
So when we have a good motivation, then we can talk about the weak points as it mentions here or faults of another and help correct them. But if it’s a negative motivation, we should not talk not approach them at such a time. The next commitment is, as it says in the text, don’t think about the affairs of others. Don’t think about the affairs of others. And this is when it would be improper to investigate, analyze the faults of others in the sense of thinking I myself am a mind training practitioner and I have eliminated all these various faults from my mind but this person, they have so many faults.
I better not associate with them and therefore thinking this way is improper. The next commitment is give up all hope for results. Give up all hope for results. And this specifically means that the goal, the result of your mind training, of your practice practice of mind training. If it is to seek happiness for yourself alone, if it is you are practicing in the hope of achieving liberation, if it’s practiced with the self interest, for one’s own self interest to attain Buddhahood, then striving for such types of result is not proper or acceptable.
So what results are we to strive for That motivated by the force of love and compassion we are carrying out our training of thought transformation. And as such we are seeking the goal of the elimination of the sufferings of others and bringing others complete happiness to bring about the liberation, the placing in the state of liberation of others to achieve Buddhahood for the sake of others to achieve omniscience for sake of others. These are the goals and the results that we should be seeking in our mind training practice.